4

From Paris with Love continued HSI has prepared briefings for all political parties in anticipation of the coming Federal Election. In summary, some of our key ideas for incorporating into policy (by everyone—not just by Federal and state governments but by local governments and individual landholders, too) are: A comprehensive approach to emissions reduction is needed Action is required in all sectors to achieve the ambitious goal of restraining human induced climate change in line with the Paris Agreement to keep global warming well below 2 deg. C. This means that action in the land sector must be taken, additional to reducing fossil fuel use and to increasing the availability and use of clean renewable energy. HSI urges the reintroduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)—and we suggest that it be linked to the EU carbon price to start with. Pathways to ambitious targets start with fixing logging and clearing The land sector has a vital role to play in early action, offering substantial and immediate, once-off, emissions reductions for simply ceasing or restraining emissive landbased activities such as broadscale industrial logging and land clearing. Changes in the industrial and transport sectors are vital but take longer to swing into place because lots more resources need to be mobilised to make it happen. Therefore we urge governments, landholders, companies and the wider community—everyone—to find and choose emissions reduction pathways with explicit sequencing of actions, prioritises early action in the land sector, whilst complex transitions in other sectors are planned and executed. In this way, much more ambitious national targets can be met than if logging and clearing are not tackled first. The collapse of Gunns Ltd., the Tasmanian woodchipper, illustrates what can be done with this ‘early action in the land sector’ approach The Tasmanian carbon accounts show that, following the collapse of Gunns, the annual volume of native timber harvested in Tasmania dropped from 5.32 million m3 03 down to an estimated 0.63 million m3 in 2002in 201213, with the greatest decline experienced in the years since 2008-09 (the Gunns effect). There was a corresponding emissions reduction from 17.3 Mt CO2-e in 1990 to a mere 1.7 Mt CO2-e in 2013—an order of magnitude reduction. Aggregate emissions from the forest management sub-sector (emissions from logging minus sequestration from growing trees) decreased significantly, from a net emissions peak of 9.0 Mt CO2-e in 2002-03 to a net carbon sink of –7.9 Mt CO2-e in 2012-13. There’s more money in carbon trading than in industrial wood supply from native forests Had Tasmania’s emissions reductions from public native forests been planned and measures put in place to keep emissions below historical levels, the Tasmanian government could be making rather than losing tens of millions of dollars a year from forest management. It’s an eligible activity for the ERF, it’s just that no-one’s bothered to develop an approved methodology to support a proposal. And beware industry claims of significant carbon sequestration in harvested wood products to offset emissions from logging —they are dramatically overstated as only about 5% of logged Land clearing —undoing 20 years of achievement wood goes into long-lived product (with the lifespan for pulp and paper products estimated at about 3 year and at 15 years for medium-life products such as reconstituted fibreboards, plywood before stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere). Reduction of deforestation/landclearing also has an important contribution to make By restraining land clearing which is taking off again in many parts of Australia as States, especially Queensland, abandon earlier arrangements to reduce and restrain rates of clearance of woody ecosystems. These renewed clearances are currently adding substantially to Australia’s emissions while also destroying important, often threatened, terrestrial ecosystems. This resurgence of landclearing is undoing twenty years of good work since the original Kyoto Protocol was ratified by Australia and, unless fixed, will make it hard for Australia to adopt ambitious emissions reduction targets in line with global commitments. There’s a need for methodological development to support a ‘domestic REDD’ policy To make it clear and explicit that Australian landholders, municipalities or States choosing to adopt their own planning arrangements to reduce emissions by protecting native vegetation can receive carbon credits to sell into the current ERF—or into a reintroduced ETS. This requires a planning framework to be introduced that can transparently show that overall emissions have been reduced within the area controlled by the landholder, local government or State. This addresses the important issue of leakage (making sure emissions reductions in one place are not simply offset by emissions increases in another such that the landholder, municipality or State makes no net contribution to national or global emissions reduction). Biodiversity co-benefits are big Capturing the biodiversity co-benefits by requiring best practice conservation management will contribute to other important environmental goals and assist Australia to implement existing conservation strategies and to fulfil its obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Safeguards to ensure that actions taken for climate mitigation and adaptation do not damage ecosystems are also a requirement of the Paris Agreement. This is designed to ensure carbon conservation does no harm—but there are magnificent opportunities to get win-win outcomes. It is also important to note that intact natural ecosystems have greater resilience They are more likely to survive the climate changes we all face. Maintaining and restoring intact natural ecosystems is a key climate change adaptation strategy. This is an important contribution to the permanence of such gains in emissions reduction and ongoing sequestration— giving people confidence that payments given for maintaining carbon in the landscape are not going to be wasted should future degradation occur. 4